“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The difference between value fulfillment and growth, the fifth dimension, and the expanding universe portions should also be stressed. When man realizes that he himself creates his personal and universal environment in concrete terms, then he can begin to create a private and universal environment much superior to the one that is the result of haphazard and unenlightened constructions.

When man realizes that he creates his own image now, he will not find it so startling to believe that he creates other images in other times. Only after such a basis will the idea of reincarnation achieve its natural validity, and only when it is understood that the subconscious, certain layers of it, is a link between the present personality and past ones, will the theory of reincarnation be accepted as fact.

He would not want to be responsible.

Now. Faith and belief in an idea implies some commitment. Commitment is dependent upon expectation. He who does not have expectations along certain lines will not commit himself, and will not achieve; in the particular instance he will not give enough of himself, and he will not receive, except in proportion to what he gives.

My suggestion will be, therefore, that Ruburt do his own work in the mornings. Incidentally, I will make some effort to help him in this line, so that financially things will balance out. Afternoons, instead of working at the gallery, I would suggest that he busy himself with my book. Seriously, as he does with his own work, and that you continue to record our sessions.

I am concerned with your welfare. I am concerned with a book that will spread these ideas. While I have Ruburt in such an excellent state of passivity, I will add another point that he has blocked in the past.

For this he is to blame, and not you, since he knows intuitively what I will say; and out of fear and doubt he has refused to act upon the knowledge. You could have been persuaded, but again for all his yacking, he did not have the courage of his inner convictions, and really made no attempt to act upon them.

Had he left the gallery when his novel was published, he would by now have one and a half times his present income from writing. That is, his yearly income would exceed what it is now.

He would have been acting out of expectancy, in league with subconscious as well as conscious need, and the impetus of wanting money would have given it to him, if he closed off the other means. He did not.

Both of you, being practical, hardly considered it. For all his talk, he feared failure and your opinion of it. If you want to test the validity of expectation, then I will not say I challenge you, but I merely gently submit the above schedule.

You cannot get the results first for a test. It goes without saying that Ruburt’s technical abilities and know-how as a writer are developed. It is theoretically, but definitely, possible for an individual to suddenly perform an art for which he has in the past achieved no conscious knowledge or mastery, and to do it well. But usually expectations are just not that strong, and a conscious and unconscious preparation is necessary.

Above all the commitment. While other avenues are being used to approach financial gains, in this case they are relied upon too long. Ruburt fixed the car, so to speak, in his own psychic manner. He would never have fixed it with a screwdriver, if he had a screwdriver in his hands.

Again, he is quite to blame here, in that he is intuitively aware of pent-up energy that should go into his own work.

He was, and is, afraid of commitment to his own work, much less mine. You can be of great assistance to him, to yourself and to me. His energy, Joseph, and his ability to project ideas into material construction, is truly astounding; and with your help we must tap it.

It is precisely because Ruburt will be cut off from funds that he will permit himself, and demand of himself, that he use all of his tremendous energy in his work. Not in any sort of conscious desperation, but in the sudden and joyous release of energy toward constructive ends.

This is an extreme simplification, but while he is getting funds elsewhere, he does not really feel the need or the impetus to sell his work. That is, the impetus is not strong enough to overcome certain repressions that he allows himself in his writing now.

Ruburt will shortly come out of his daze. I imagine he will feel rather shocked. The decision, as always, is your own. I will not reprimand you if you do not take this course. I do say that it is the best one.

(In the 68th session, July 6, 1964, page 221, Seth stated that our friend Bill Macdonnel, who was going to vacation in Provincetown, Cape Cod, for a few weeks, “will of course go to the seaside. There is a man, perhaps fifty years old, with whom he will become acquainted, or with whom he may become acquainted, with prickly hair. I see a rowboat with a symbol of some sort on it. I do not particularly see any women. That may be because my interests are somewhat different now, though this could be misleading.”

(In the 75th session, July 29, 1964, page 273, Seth stated regarding Bill: “Your friend has made two friends, one older and one approximately his own age. He is of course, or has been, near water. He has been at a bar with a large keg in it. There are two houses nearby, and a front room across from a beach. There is a boat and dock. I also believe he was in a group with four men, maybe something to do with a string of shells, also.”

(Bill returned from Provincetown last Saturday, Aug. 29, 1964. Visiting us the next day, Sunday, he confirmed Seth’s statements in almost all instances.

(Bill reached Provincetown the second week in July. He had not been there long, he said, when he did meet a man as described by Seth in the 68th session. His name and address will be furnished on request. The man was 54 years old actually, and his “prickly hair” turned out to be a brush cut. Bill first got acquainted with him in the Old Colony Bar in Provincetown. The man is from New York City, and was spending a week in Provincetown to “get away from his wife and family.”

(In the 68th session Seth mentioned a rowboat with a symbol. Bill recalls no such boat, stating he did not pay particular attention to boats. His acquaintance wore a cap with an anchor symbol on it, although we do not regard this as being what Seth referred to.

(First, after some thought and figuring of dates, Bill states that the date, 7/29, is correct for the situations described below. By this time he had been in Provincetown long enough to meet various people.

(Bill did make two friends, one older, and one about his own age. The young man is named Gary, and is from Boston. The older man is named Larry O’Toole, and is from Baltimore, MD. Both are artists. Gary is about 25, [Bill is 27], and Larry O’Toole is 50 or so. Bill knew Gary for about two weeks, and O’Toole for about six weeks. He has their addresses, and Gary’s last name which he could not recall offhand.

(Bill states that on or somewhere either just before or after July 29, the date of the 75th session, he attended a party at Larry O’Toole’s cottage. Attending the party were Bill, Gary, Larry, and two other men Bill did not know. Thus, as Seth stated, Bill “was in a group with four men.”

(The party broke up rather early that evening, and Bill then went to the Atlantic House bar with Garry and Larry, where he saw the keg. Bill states that another bar in Provincetown has many small kegs dangling from the ceiling as a means of decoration, but these kegs are quite small, and do not compare with the one in the A-House for size.

(Bill Macdonnel also states that as one looks out the front room of Larry O’Toole’s cottage, he sees just to the left a dock with boats, although Seth stated it as “a boat and dock,” singular. To the right of the joined cottages is the Provincetown Playhouse.

(The front room overlooking the water is, contrary to expectations, rather an unusual one in Provincetown, Bill said, since the cottages are rather crowded in against other buildings in somewhat of a helter-skelter fashion, and actually most of them do not command a view of the water. In this O’Toole’s cottage was out of the ordinary. The bar in the cottage has a small beer keg, Bill said, but he does not believe this is the one referred to by Seth.

(Regarding Seth’s statement about a string of shells, the only association with shells that Bill recalls is that shell ashtrays were used at the party. He does not think this is what Seth referred to.